Fast Five (2011)

The Fast and Furious series has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a cheap, PG-13 thrill ride for the X-games generation, full of pretty faced unknowns and now possibly the biggest and strongest franchise going in Hollywood outside of Harry Potter. the first two Fast and Furious films were silly action movies for tweenage boys. They looked cheap and were poorly written. Tokyo Drift was better than it deserved to be, but non-canonical and Fast and Furious was a self-serious mess. Fast Five is a fantastic action film, a solid heist movie and a return to glory. They get away from the cars- we still see them but they’re not as integral- and start focusing on the whole fugitive outlaw lifestyle aspect of the characters. This is as gritty as the FF franchise has been and also the most emotionally satisfying, with Paul Walker and Vin Diesel putting in surprisingly credible performances in which they’re asked to emote quite a bit. The film does a good job of bringing the series full circle by giving all the supporting characters some closure or reviving their story lines to great effect. The Rock is also a very solid edition, giving his best action-movie performance of his career and making me wonder if maybe he just chooses bad scripts, because he’s wonderful here as the hard nosed FBI agent hot on Dom’s trail. Like I said, the action is gritty- tons of gun work and chases, both in cars and on foot- and the acting is above par for the series. Just a great summer adventure and a nice re-energizing for a series that nobody thought would last this long.